gottorf

27 ms·

451.
by gottorf 2y ago
I follow this rule, or the variant where you wait for the first point release of a new major version, wherever possible. My desktop ran Debian bullseye until maybe about a month ago, when I updated to bookworm on its 5th point release. My b
452.
by gottorf 2y ago
Definitely an odd thing to regulate federally. No reason at all why toilets in New Mexico (average annual rainfall 13") and Mississippi (56") should be held to the same legal limit of water usage.
453.
by gottorf 3y ago
> few people realize what it means to sit on a paper loss for 14 years. Not many have the mental fortitude to do that. Partly why real estate is such a big part of most people's net worths (and covered by the OP): it's not mark
454.
by gottorf 3y ago
Doubling your money over 25 years is roughly ~2% returns a year, so it would have been a terrible investment. For comparison, if you parked your money in the S&P 500, you would have made over 5% a year.
455.
by gottorf 3y ago
> We established the Fed (and later, the FDIC) because people were sick and tired of bankers controlling monetary policy and wiping out their life savings The Great Depression, the savings and loan crisis, and the GFC all happened after
456.
by gottorf 3y ago
Wasn't GP's point that were people to engage in fewer consumer luxuries, they would be able to invest in their "real" standard of living instead?
457.
by gottorf 3y ago
> Don't use the word expat, it just means white immigrant. This always was such a silly argument. "Expat" means someone in a well-compensated position living in a different country, usually sent by a multinational corporat
458.
by gottorf 3y ago
> the middle class “American Dream” honestly it’s too much stuff On one hand, this is absolutely true, where people living in houses with many thousands of square feet still rent storage units to store their extra stuff. On the other, ha
459.
by gottorf 3y ago
They are adjusted for inflation (standardized to "2019 prices"). In unadjusted nominal terms, the average annual wage in 1900 was in the order of hundreds of dollars.
460.
by gottorf 3y ago
> it's ridiculous to think the average person can afford to spend that much just to skip a line a couple times a year. Well, sure, it's ridiculous to pay that much if you only travel a couple times a year. It's like how pa
461.
by gottorf 3y ago
Passport control is CBP (a part of USCIS) and doesn't really have any relation to TSA, which is security checks to go from the "unsecured" (curbside) part of the airport to the "secured" (planeside) part. > back
462.
by gottorf 3y ago
I was in Sydney. I may be misremembering the exact kind of establishments I found them in -- this was quite a few years ago.
463.
by gottorf 3y ago
One thing that struck me in my visit to Australia was the prevalence of gambling machines in casual locations, like corner stores and coffee shops. I used to be a lot more libertarian about things like gambling and personal drug consumption
464.
by gottorf 3y ago
When the GP said "basic medicines", they probably meant all the generic stuff that can be had without insurance for a few dollars; all the stuff that is on the WHO list of essential medicines[0], that is. I'd venture that dru
465.
by gottorf 3y ago
That's a fair point, but the other perspective is that perhaps the organization grew far beyond its original remit, and is now run by its insiders for the benefit of its insiders, a la Robert Conquest's laws. The public not willin
466.
by gottorf 3y ago
> having an interesting time just listening to the radio The NPR member station you're listening to is distinct from National Public Radio, Inc. The former controls its own programming. Uri Berliner was employed by the latter.
467.
by gottorf 3y ago
> A lot of employers have this. This isn't that strange. Right, but NPR isn't any old employer. It was created by Congress with the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 and is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with a mission of "creating a
468.
by gottorf 3y ago
You can go straight to the source, i.e. the audited FY2023 financial statement[0]. You're right that revenues from CPB contracts amount to single-digit million dollars (roughly $7mm in 2023) a year, out of >$300mm of total annual re
469.
by gottorf 3y ago
Being a mere outside observer, I naturally do not have any such evidence, but I do wonder what that approval process is like? Do employees have to, for example, agree not to disparage NPR in such outside work?
470.
by gottorf 3y ago
> It this a punishment that is always applied; or used selectively? Steve Inskeep, a fellow NPR journalist, published a rebuttal on his own Substack[0] to Uri Berliner's article. Considering that Inskeep's Substack is also for
471.
by gottorf 3y ago
> in my backyard How do you define your "back yard"? I mean, perhaps very few people are willing to literally abut a nuclear power plant, but how far are most people OK with it? Looks like I'm about 150 miles from the near
472.
by gottorf 3y ago
> keeping access as low as possible That's a feature, not a bug. If everyone has a Harvard degree, nobody has a Harvard degree. A lot of the worth of one derives from its exclusivity, and the cream of the crop you meet there because
473.
by gottorf 3y ago
> but most PhDs stop working in science and end up working for corporations. The bills don't pay themselves, I suppose! Especially if a PhD comes with a hefty loan to pay off. > Q: Why is that? I don't know if any single per
474.
by gottorf 3y ago
> the biggest predictor of academic success is wealth Perhaps the better way to think of wealth is as a proxy for intelligent, conscientious parents who care about educating their children. That is, the same qualities that make someone m
475.
by gottorf 3y ago
> some people have access to private tutors who "teach the test" and others don't, not "some people study harder than others". And there is absolutely truth to that. There is truth to the fact that some students
476.
by gottorf 3y ago
> Why are we dishing out far more PhDs - and I'm guessing also all other types of academic qualification - per capita than we were before? On one hand, the sphere of human knowledge is expanding, so the outermost edges (the surface
477.
by gottorf 3y ago
The region in question (Gyeongsang-do, split into two provinces in modern South Korean administration) was also the home ground of the Kingdom of Silla, which was arguably the first polity that unified the Korean peninsula, almost 1400 year
478.
by gottorf 3y ago
$3k-15k sounds like a realistic estimate (no judgment on whether it really should cost that much), but what GP said is three orders of magnitude higher.
479.
by gottorf 3y ago
Am I reading that right? Two hundred and ten thousand to one million dollars?
480.
by gottorf 3y ago
I bought like 10 different things in one order from Amazon the other day. I was hoping it would come in one big box; none of it was fragile and could easily have been packed that way. but no, it came in 10 different paper packaging.

More ›